The Devil's Secret (26 page)

Heather looked like she was about to speak, but she held her tongue and turned to Brandon. “You can answer her better than I can, hon. Do you have anything to say?”

Brandon’s head swayed lightly from side to side. Thorn leaned closer to hear his quiet reply.

“You’ve said before, Heather, that we all create our own purposes in life,” Brandon began. “And that morality comes from inside of us instead of outside, right? Well, that’s a nice thought, but—and no offense—it doesn’t make sense. If it’s just us little old fallible humans creating purpose, how are those purposes worth anything? They’re subjective and arbitrary. There’s no, like, universal common denominator or anything that makes one purpose better than any other purpose. There’s nothing to base our morality on, so why not just toss morality out the window?” He shrugged and kicked a stray rock in the middle of the street. Karen stretched her arms triumphantly. “I’m sorry, hon. I’m not agreeing with Karen that there is a God, but I think she’s right about life’s emptiness, if we’re honest with ourselves. If God isn’t behind the scenes, pulling all the strings, then what meaning could life possibly hold for any of us?”

“So you got the idea from her,” Heather said in response, raising her eyebrows.

“He did not!” Karen said, inching toward Heather as the group neared the hilltop. “If God’s not real, Brandon has nothing to base his sense of morality on, does he? And neither do you. Nothing but your own self-righteousness. If we look to humankind to create our morality, we’ll all end up as egomaniacs, or as nihilists like Brandon.”

“No we won’t,” Heather said.

“Why not? If there’s no Heaven or Hell, and we’ll never be judged for our sins, then we have no reason not to cheat, steal, and murder. Without faith in God, there’s no point in caring for our neighbors, fighting injustice, striving for peace on earth. If God’s not real, who’s responsible for our well-being?”

“
We
are.” Heather said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“And what should we base our morality on, if not faith in God?”

“We should base it on our happiness.”

“On pleasure-seeking, you mean?”

“No, not just happiness for me and you, but for everybody.
Happiness
is your universal common denominator, Brandon. So is suffering. Morality lies in pushing humanity away from suffering and toward happiness.”

“Well, if happiness is all there really is to life,” Karen asked, “then what are you going to live for, Heather? For personal achievement? For the approval of your peers? For carpe diem adventure? For wealth and power? For something else that’s ultimately empty?”

“For knowledge!” Heather said immediately. “For progress! For the betterment of humankind. For fairness and equality. For love.” Heather’s eyes flashed over to Brandon, but by the time he returned her gaze, she was looking at Karen again, passion in her voice. “I want to see a world without war. I want to see a sustainable economy built on the love of innovation rather than on the backs of the poor. I want to see a peaceful Middle East, freed from the chains of faith.”

They were cresting the very top of the hill now. Though Thorn could see streetlights on the road behind them and along the downward slope in front of them, no artificial lights lit the hill’s peak. Perhaps this was on purpose, because the hilltop offered a scenic view of the moonlit vista below. Neighborhoods and highways were tucked snugly beneath the hulking black shapes of vigilant little mountains; a river curved between the buildings below then meandered out to the horizon; and above all that, an even greater view: the stars speckling the sky like a million beaming freckles. The tapestry began at one horizon and ended at the other, but it seemed as if a journey across that expanse might take a lifetime or two. Thorn found the starlight so dazzling that for a moment, such a journey seemed worth it.

Heather stepped into the center of the road, raised her arms, and gestured grandly, encompassing the heavens. “I want to see women and men living on Mars, then on the moons of Jupiter, then on planets across the galaxy. I want to learn what’s out there at the largest levels, and what secrets hide inside the smallest subatomic particle. I want to learn how we
really
came to be here. I want to create art. I want to give to charity. I want to cure cancer. I want to save the planet. I want to keep learning, infinitely. I want everyone to have easy access to education and health care. I want to help every woman and man alive reach their fullest potential. And since I’m alive only once, working toward these goals is way more urgent to me than it’d be if I thought I had an eternity to accomplish them. I’m an atheist
and
a humanist, Ms. Noyce. And if you say that I don’t have morals, you don’t know me.”

Heather exhaled and let her arms hang at her sides. Brandon’s widened eyes indicated surprise, and perhaps admiration. Reluctantly pacing forward with the rest of the group, Karen hunched her shoulders and fidgeted with her hands, looking a bit rattled and more than a bit pissed off.

“I think what morality you do have was really just stolen from Christianity,” she said at last.

“How could that be?” Heather said. “You ground your morals in a very old book. I ground my morals in empathy. You do the right thing because you think a deity told you to do it. I do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.”

Karen dismissed Heather with a wave of her hand. “I can’t convince you if you don’t want to hear my words.” Then she looked past Heather, to Thorn. “And what about you, Virgil? Or whatever you are? You’ve been awfully quiet. What do
you
think about all this?”

Thorn couldn’t fathom why Karen would ask
him
such a question. Perhaps she hoped that his vileness would taint Heather’s argument.

He searched for a response. At first, the debate’s subject matter had seemed beneath him, since he knew most of the answers. Yet as it had progressed, he couldn’t help but recall the wicked dogma of the demon world, and how tenaciously it had ensnared Marcus, and the Judge, and even himself. Only after he’d summoned the nerve to honestly question his own beliefs—to ask himself if maybe, just maybe, he was wrong about some things—had he seen those beliefs for what they really were.

“What do I think?” Thorn said. “I think a belief system that is true will stand up to scrutiny. Only liars and dupes fear doubt. For we can never know for sure if we’re right until we’ve tried very, very hard to prove ourselves wrong.”

The humans seemed to take a moment to digest this, none making eye contact with the others. For a few seconds, the thumping of their feet against the ground was the only sound again. Then the buzz of streetlights swelled as they began to descend the hill. For good measure, Thorn added, “Now can we please, for the love of God, go get that airplane?”

The immense hangar doors folded upward, creaking a raucous metallic song into the nighttime expanse. The hangar stood in an isolated corner of the airfield, far from any other structures. Brandon had brought them in through a back gate, and fortunately, Thorn hadn’t spotted any new humans during the walk. He’d continued to evade Karen’s constant questions as well.

Brandon slipped underneath the opening doors, then ran to the small office at the rear of the hangar. “I’m getting the keys. I’ll have it up and running as soon as I can.”

The plane itself was a small white Cessna with external landing gear and a single propeller, barely large enough to fit the four of them. The word “JUST” was painted in bright blue paint on one side of the vertical stabilizer, and when Thorn paced around to the other side, he found the word “MARRIED.”

Thorn was growing anxious, and not only because any moment could herald the arrival of the sunrise, or possibly God’s army of angels. This plan carried great risk to the humans’ lives. But could he ask Heather and Karen to take the safer route: to take a car and drive across the Sanctuary, leaving Brandon alone to assume the risk of flying the airplane—a risk which would soon become all too apparent? The humans trusted Thorn little enough already, and he feared that Karen would use any more strange requests from him to sow dissent among them again. No, if Thorn’s plan was going to succeed, they’d all have to get on that plane and court death.

“Damn, I wish I’d thought to smoke on the ride over,” Brandon muttered as he unlatched the plane’s door. “Hop in.” He lowered the stairs then climbed up inside.

Thorn inspected the Cessna’s exterior. Would it be able to go fast enough for his purposes? Thorn was upset with himself for never having learned more about aviation, since it had existed for over a century now.
Yet another area of knowledge that I never experienced—that I ignored in favor of power games.

He moved Virgil’s dead legs one after the other until he found himself next to Karen at the aircraft’s door. Her hands rested on each side of the doorway. She seemed deep in thought. “Should we get on?” he asked her.

She remained still for a few moments, then called into the plane. “Heather.”

Crouching, Heather poked her head out of the plane. She glanced briefly at Thorn before focusing on Karen. “What’s up?”

“Come here,” Karen said, gesturing Heather closer. Heather sat on the plane’s steps, face to face with the preacher.

“My father was a nice man, a good Christian,” Karen said. “Daniel Noyce. Thin guy with a little scar on his lip, always overdressed, always happy to help others. Taught me everything I know about leading a church.”

Heather again threw Thorn an uncertain glance. She fretted with her navy blue dress.

“When I was sixteen,” Karen continued, “my family learned that my dad had been cheating on my mom ever since I was little. He’d had three mistresses that we knew about, but there were probably more. He was so ashamed. Told my mom he’d wanted to confess ever since the first affair, but he was always too weak to summon the nerve. So he went on making a joke of the sacrament of marriage. It split our family apart.”

Heather had rolled a big clump of her dress into an uncomfortable knot in her hand. She kept her eyes away from Karen’s.

“I sincerely apologize for being so rude at your wedding,” Karen said. “But no matter what you believe about how the universe works, I want you to know that marriages are important. You need to take this commitment seriously, and treat my Brandon well. For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.”

“I will,” said Heather, and she finally looked at Karen. The two women stared into each other’s souls, searching: perhaps for understanding, perhaps for a reason to make peace.

“I shouldn’t envy your marriage, but I do,” Karen said. “I never got married. I’m a small person, and I’ve chosen to surrender my life and my life’s work to a higher authority.” She gingerly lifted her hands away from the plane’s hull, then clasped them together. “I’ve been seeking all my life to become a more moral, godly person. And then kids like you and Brandon—kids I care about—come along and tell me I’m full of crap. Do you have any idea how that feels?”

As Heather contemplated, Thorn heard Brandon tinkering in the cockpit. The engine started, then sputtered, and finally faltered back into silence.

“You know,” Heather said to Karen, “Brandon once told me a story about you. About one time when a messy-looking drug addict went into your church on a Sunday morning, sat right in the middle of the chapel, track marks all over his arms?”

“Ha. Yep. The poor fella stank to high heaven.”

“Brandon told me that a few people in your congregation asked him to leave, but right at the start of your sermon, you walked up to him, took his hand, and led him to the front row. In front of everybody. Then you had him over for lunch after the service.”

“His name’s Garth. He works as our janitor now.”

Heather chuckled, then reached forward and placed a reassuring hand on Karen’s arm. “From the moment Brandon told me that story, I knew you were a moral person. I just don’t think you need faith to be that way, is all. Or at least, even if you do,
I
don’t.”

Karen nodded, and closed her eyes. “That’s kind of you to say. I wish you well, Heather. And I hope you understand… I’ve decided not to join you on the plane. I’ve decided to stay here.”

No!
Thorn wanted to say.
If you stay here, the Sanctuary will end and you’ll be thrown back into the system, doomed to die over and over until you finally make a choice that God deems correct.
Were it not for the tentative nature of Brandon and Heather’s trust in him, Thorn might have seized Karen’s mind as he’d once seized Crystal’s, putting her in a trance and forcing her to do his bidding—only with Karen, it’d be to save her life.

But then he wondered: Could Karen’s apology have been her Big Choice? Perhaps she’d been meant to grow greater than her own biases and extend an olive branch. Perhaps Heather’s Big Choice had been the same. Thorn hoped this was the case—that Karen would be free to live out her life on Earth. It was the only hope for her that he could cling to, since she certainly wouldn’t listen to any pleas from him to get onto the plane. But he also hoped that Heather wouldn’t suddenly disappear on him.

“Tell Brandon I’ll see you both on the other side of this godforsaken night,” Karen said, opening her eyes. “And I’ll always be here in Bristol if you ever need a friend.”

Heather smiled. She brushed some hair out of her face, then said, “Thank you.”

Karen nodded just as the plane’s engine sputtered to life. She backed toward the hangar’s entrance.

Thorn yelled over the strengthening rumble of the engine. “Karen. I’m here to help you. You can trust me. Can you please join us on the plane?”

Karen pointedly shook her head, turned her back, then paced out of the hangar, keeping her distance from the spinning propeller.
Well, at least I asked. Besides, Karen’s chances of survival might be better on the ground.

Thorn hopped into the plane then fastened the door shut behind him. Brandon yelled something from the cockpit.

“What?” Thorn called.

Heather settled into the copilot’s seat, though Thorn doubted she knew much about flying. She threw him a set of headphones, connected to the cockpit by a thick black cord. Thorn caught the headset and put it on. Heather did likewise.